


Winter Boys

by MemoryCrow



Category: Eragon (2006), Labyrinth (1986), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Magic, Magical Bond, Magical Realism, Roommates, curious witchery, faerie tale, scarecrow of doom, wizard rehab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23583043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemoryCrow/pseuds/MemoryCrow
Summary: A little faerie-tale romp that two specific people might read. I hope it's fun. :D
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	Winter Boys

**Author's Note:**

> 100% inspired by Brokensoul's Three Villains series, the brilliant bringing together of Rumplestiltskin, Jareth (ye olde Goblin King) and Durza.

_One-little-two-little-three-little goblins_ , sang Rumplestiltskin. Jareth frowned. Smallish, dark and moody clouds of gloom gathered around Durza and rumbled ominously. Unconcerned, Rumplestiltskin sang happily to himself, hands active, booted feet giving a little tap-hop.

“I’m not a goblin.” Jareth haughtily sniffed.

“Nor I.” Durza intoned.

“Oh, piffle.” Rumplestiltskin smiled his terrible smile. “You’re so vain. I bet you think this song is about you.”

With a giggle, he carried on.

Once upon a time, a pack of wild wind spirits lashed out within a desert of rock and sand. People were utterly destroyed and torn asunder. An odd child was infected, having called out to the wild spirits to wreak havoc and deliver vengeance. In a trial of blood and pain, the boy – who knew not his own strength – became Shade.

Once upon a time, children were actually delivered by storks or found under the larger cabbage leaves. One such, with mis-matched eyes and uncontrolled, dream-like magic was overlooked by his own people and discovered by goblins. He rose up through their many, disorganized ranks to become their king.

Once upon a time, a frightened, betrayed and desperate man committed acts of theft and murder. Thus, he was both seduced and deceived by an ancient and powerful demon. Now he _is_ the ancient and powerful demon, and for many, many years he has been quite mad.

Durza’s lines were clean. Sloe-black, blood-red, scarification on white flesh. His lines were deep and crisp and evil.

A ghoul, a hain’t, a specter. Wraith, phantom, macabre whisper, stark, dense shadow. Too denuded of warmth to be an incubus, he nevertheless found fascination with witches. Their frenzy or calm, their ruby hearts that quietly informed them of their wickedness. Some were glad and some wept; Durza studied each one. A murmuration of witches, a flock upon their brooms, dreaming. A school that swam through ripples of night, bathed in starlight.

Jareth was carved of ice. Mercury flowed through his veins and his kisses, tasting of malachite, were poison.

One must build up a tolerance.

His arrogance was not posturing; he knew he was better than anyone. Everyone. He knew. Raised-up away from his own people, he looked down upon them. Familiar with goblins, he was at ease in the company of demons.

He watched human beings. Fools, madmen. Brilliant at times, but never so brilliant as he. Still, they fed something urgent and hot in his blood, enriching him. En masse, they were shockingly destructive.

Fragile. Ultimately, short-lived. Attachment was unthinkable.

Rumplestiltskin was made of chaos and grit. If ever-a-whever-a-wiz-there-was. (If ever a weaver?). As intellectual and cerebral as his companions, it was yet he who introduced the pelvic thrust, the animal grunt and growl, the meat of the matter, the muscle of the magic. His dark magic had heft, fueled with heart’s blood and appearing in sparkles of iron-rich purple-crimson.

He was wild with craziness and aware of everything. Here and there he took a notion to ponder or study one individual or another, but mostly he kept a distance.

Hearts, brains, courage. All precious things, held dear and best kept for oneself.

Mincing milksop and his manifold manifesto. Durza watched Jareth twitch and scowl within his growing need for release, pent-up and panting in ill-temper, in disgust. Soon, the king would need to pull a pig-tail and call a girl mean names. Chase her with snakes or insects with pincers, give a vicious pinch with his own long, pale fingers and dash away, or disappear in a blip, leaving behind a mischief of goblins.

If she took one step without first saying, “Mother, may I?”, her doom was assured, to be witnessed by Jareth’s upside-down, fangy and feral grin.

All three traveled in disguise and came upon two girls telling one another stories, deep in the shadowy woods, off-road, as they were – of course – warned against. Jareth haunted the trees as a barn owl, a ghost-face in deep green. Rumplestiltskin, as was his scaly nature, was an invisible whiplash of a serpent, a secret slide in leaf-litter, jewel-eyes never seen. Durza, unknowable, was a soft and sly wind. He blew cold kisses down the backs of unsuspecting necks, downy with invisible, light-filled hairs.

Belle said, “Once upon a time there was a witch who sat in bramble-briar, brooding her moody-mood. In her witch’s hut she chewed her cud, bitter shards of sticks and dry twigs. Beside her was a smoke-eyed cat.

“Nearby, the Creature’s eyes were moonstone and held the secret of her lair, the trees and tall rushes, long grasses and reeds of copper, all ablaze with a molten, late-year sun. All around was flora named for fauna… turtlehead, lizard-tail, goat’s beard, rabbit tobacco.

“Hoofed, he came to her splintered door and scratched.”

Ruby said, “Once upon a time a fallen angel visited a wicked woman and showed her colors and light; the break of cold, dark water where fish leapt and rolled, silver sides to rose bellies. Minnows, shadows, blue-green that shimmered in a thicket of antler-branch and pewter-dark leaves.

“In daylight, the sparkle and endless motion of sun and shadow on water. The blinding light, the glare. The heat within marrow so that a wicked woman’s bones glow at night.

“His feathers were burnt-to-brilliant orange with owl-eye markings, like Polyphemus moths. The underside of his wings was a soft, dark fur, glittering with the light of stars.”

{ _O demons, O wicked Fae, adopted goblin; Take note_.}

Belle said, “The Godling was called The Stranger and he came from the Underworld. The witch beat her fist upon the earth. She closed her eyes and saw beneath its surface; the weave and dangle of roots, some bigger than her arm, some like threads, like the delicate capillaries of her eyes.

“Darkness, the scent of black dirt or red clay, furred, murky green and pale, sunless life. Then a burst of light, a winking of crystal. Mineral. An iridescent flash of beetle.

“ _Hello? Hello? Hello?_

“He came, craving honey and seed cakes, mushrooms and apples. He lapped at cream and guzzled wine, and sometimes he could not refrain from drinking blood and eating flesh.”

…. It was revolutionary, a revelation. More than a dragon of seven heads and the name of blasphemy, more than a woman clothed in the sun with the moon beneath her feet; it was a revelation. The very coming of the day.

Rumplestiltskin, a-slither, shivering with revelation, wondered if none of the lone women, the witches living in the words of the girls, would ever find simple love (was there such a thing?) with an ordinary man. Would they ever leave the wild and live among people… in towns or cities?

Listening as the girls spoke, weaving unseen spells with one another’s words, he knew that – no – they would not, the witches. Never, ever.

Jareth longed to meet revelation with revelation. To be revealed. To transform from owl and stand before the girls; those raw and strange scraps of humanity, hot with the blood of women rushing through girl-veins, pumping from girl-hearts. _Behold_ , the brilliant radiance of the Fae – the Fae King of the Goblins! The splendor of his countenance and the righteous magnetism between his legs, inevitably drawing the eye with magical force.

Durza, who disliked seeing his reflection, wished only to remain invisible and somehow melt into the girls. In a difficult to articulate manner, to _become, become, become_. The cells of their soft skin, scent in their hair, a glow within the light or dark depths of their eyes. A blush, tell-tale, at the bases of their delicate, seashell fingernails.

Rumplestiltskin, so very inhabited, was nearly incoherent of looks and almost repelled at the notion of inhabiting another. His vanity was almost entirely in terms of magic and power. His sense of self was both deeply anchored and wildly scattered.

He wanted only to play.

A supple, slinky, secretive, silky and sinewy serpent, quick as thought, Rumplestiltskin wound around the ankle of a russet-haired girl, a girl the color of autumn. Her colors flashed through his rope-muscle body, changing the glitter and wink of his scales and making them fiery. The face that looked at hers was beyond strange…. Serpentine and yet morphing with a hint of something humanoid. Mad, snow-leopard eyes and a curving, crocodile grin. A happily tasting tongue that said _Ssssssss_. ( _O Ssssssissster in sssspirrit_ ).

For a moment there was no sound in the forest, no movement. Girls, demons and faerie all held their breath, every heart arrested, every belly turned to stone that yet trembled.

Then both girls shrieked; Bloody. Murder. The russet-autumn girl shook her leg with epileptic violence, the Hokey-Pokey gone psychotic, as though the Spirit were upon her. For that’s what it’s all about.

It had been pure revelation, the inner workings of the two girls, telling tales of women who sought ( _longed for_ ) monsters. The second revelation was no revelation at all; Faced with their own dark demons, the girls fled, high-tailed it the hell away, never looking back… Lest the monsters be at their backs.

~O~

But there were oddities, anomalies. The unusual, the peculiar, the curious and even spooky. Bad parenting made for fertile ground, all concurred, as did little-to-no parenting. One must sniff-up crumbs where they fell, on city streets or in the hinterland.

Growth, stunted or twisted; it was written in rhyme.

_Here I am, little Jumping Joan. When nobody’s with me, I’m all alone._

_Down will come baby, cradle and all._

_He put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her, very well._

_Ashes. Ashes._

And a warning to the girls who courted Darkness, never once believing it was truly there, listening: _Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town. Some in rags and some in tags… and some in velvet gowns._

Three beggars, in feathers, scales and wrapped in spirits of air, journeying and loitering with ill intent.

In such spirit, the trio attired themselves in beast and elemental costume and ventured forth to see the fine lady upon the white horse…. For with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, she was sure to have music wherever she goes.

It was something of a let-down.

The journey was not for naught. There, unnoticed by busy crowds, was young Cruella, a product of bad parenting. She got her lonesome, grubby and greedy hands on a vial of squid ink, (of all inks!), and she _drank it_. It was an act done on purpose, and the trio watched in amazement as her fair hair turned white, then the inky-black seeped all through it, all to one side. She was both comedy and tragedy, a beginning and an ending of herself, as Janus. The many spells and freedoms of the ink were written, etched and carved upon her organs and bones, a thing that might be seen under advanced imaging… or with eyes touched by magic.

~O~

The day was wet, cold and dark. It was a misery of sleety rain that drizzled icily or fell in torrents, bitter and prickly and insistent. In the moody interims of precipitation, a heavy mist lay upon valley and holler, in the cleavage of mountains, around gravestones and over lakes. With the rising of the sun, the day could hardly be distinguished from the night.

Hag-goddess in a foul mood, Rumplestiltskin thought; this was what beset the land. What should one do? How to appease and please her? Tea and toast? A gift of chocolate?

Perhaps he should send Durza to intervene. No one loved the night, the gloom and gloam and the clinging, unhappy wraiths of the boneyard more than he.

Huzzah, storm clouds cleared. (What had Durza _done_ with that goddess of old? With her raggle-taggle hair and sullen eyes, her hunched-over posture and a frog in her pocket. How had he sweetened her day?)

Jareth stood on the roof of the house he shared with demons. Not a castle, but what was one to do? Evening was coming on, yet it was lighter than it had been in days. A streak of orange-red marked the horizon, fiery blood. Trees, saturated with water, inked their branches in a black webbing against the bloody miasma. In layers, the sky over the blaze was a deep greenish-blue, then periwinkle and finally a velvety, ocean darkness beginning to show a faint shimmer of stars.

With barely a thought, another shimmer, he took wing as a barn owl, a long swoop over rocky, witchgrass-tufted land.

Above, the ghost-owl. Below, small and feral goblins ran amok, splashing in puddles, sipping water from dripping leaves, joyful in their play.

_Ah, ah, ah_ …

Rumplestiltskin’s sighs were soft and filled with ache. Belle, the russet-girl, was a spirit within and around the dense matter of his body, waking its nerve endings with butterfly touches of petal lips and a tease of feathery fingertips.

He was nowhere near the curious girl, but she tried – amateurish and in play – to work magic. It sought him out, his kindred, and made him aware.

 _Ah, ah ah_ ….

Belle counted, thumb-tap to each fingertip, in turn, words and rhyme making a rhythm. Her spell was underway.

_Bring me the wolf._

It was a notion stolen from Ruby, her dark and lissome friend; But what need had Ruby of wolves? A wolf paced and turned about in Ruby, endlessly… she was furry on the inside, a girl who came from a lineage of wolves and bears, the rude squawk of crows.

Belle, though. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Dragonflies, hummingbirds and the lit, wide eyes of many, loyal cats.

Th wolf was a storm, a warm cuddle and a tribe. It licked wounds and set up a chorus of howls in the long, cold night.

She had to know.

 _Ah, ah, ah_ … Rumplestiltskin’s eyes were closed, strange, gossamer eyelashes a-flutter as his snow leopard eyes moved beneath lavender-green, bruised lids. His greenish tones were silvery-pale and he was sick with ghosts, with ghostology. He, too, wanted to know tooth and fang, the rush of blood, a respite from the always-winter and a place in the wider world, a purpose. Hot breath and a trot that covered miles. He fed and fed Belle’s newborn magic, for his magic had muscle.

The flattened stems and leaves of sweet Joe-pye weed and mullein made into a soft, warm nest by a circling animal. A mixture of blood and honey, potent with a dark and dripping sex. Into the cauldron, a scoop of earth in which was captured a pawprint. Pine bark, like cinnamon, bristles of fur caught in its fibers.

Belle counted, finger-to-thumb and nearly in trance.

Far away, Rumplestiltskin swooned, seduced by magic; his strength and his ultimate weakness. Softly, a whisper, Belle blew fire, not knowing its path. She lit up Rumplestiltskin’s serpent-spine, vertebra by sharp vertebra.

She sought a wolf, but her spell woke a dragon.

The dragon soared in a white-out sky, roaring its hatred of all humanity. Fire that had long lingered in Rumplestiltskin’s nervous system now made all of his blood hot and molten. It churned in his belly and belched from his wide-apart jaws, jagged with sharp teeth that were polished to razors by fire. The dragon’s eyes were like a snow leopard’s and were deeply hooded. Its scales shone like luciferase.

The fire he breathed raced over miles of farmland, along the streets of cities. It was destructive and it destroyed. Seen another way, it cleansed. It made of the mess of the world a canvas of sizzle and ash.

And should a human being, (one or one hundred), get in its path…. Well. Whoopsie-daisy.

These people weren’t fucking daisies.

Fire, hot wind, howling madness, shimmery, shifting phantasms: This was Durza’s province, his specialty. His surface was cold and cadaverous and his tears were splinters of ice, but dragon-beings, reptilian wraiths swarmed in his gut. He’d once been honed, shaped by such heat. In the cooling, he’d emerged as volcanic glass.

“Fucking hell, can you _do_ something with him?” Jareth demanded.

At times it was really too much. The demons had spurts of utterly uncontrolled violence that far exceeded his own moments of temper and spite. They made fun of him for taking pleasure in making others stink. But _, eternally_.

Durza watched the wink and shadow that rolled itself through the sky. Winds that buffeted the dragon from beneath flapped the leather of its wings like the canvas of sails. It would never want to come down.

Nevertheless, Durza answered, “Yesssss.”

Once upon a time there was a curious girl who began to fancy herself a witch, but she was iffy at spells. For a time, she was very unaware of just how awry her spell-intentions went. She lived in an isolated community and had little knowledge synchronicity; none at all of the Butterfly Effect. Had she known just how far-reaching could be her wayward magic and the sorts of beings it attracted, she might not have been - immediately – dismayed.

For… misappropriated or not, the spells _did_ something. They didn’t simply evaporate, a nothingness of words and play. They went out into the world and changed it. She had magic, even if she had it rather shoddily.

She heard rumors of a dragon in a far-off, mountainous region. Like all in her community, she was concerned, yet certainly did not once wonder if she had anything to do with it. She missed out, completely, on the wraith-individual who held his corpse-like arms to the sky and beguiled the powers of air to rein-in the dragon, to bring it to ground and tear at its scaly flesh until the dark being inside was revealed. All along, the wraith’s blood-red hair whipped about in a gale, a tempest of ghosts. His horrible scars shone an electric blue against his waxy-white skin.

She knew nothing of the subsequent Wizard Rehab, an endeavor to keep one mightily riled-up Dark One from blowing up the world and all in it. Because: Ultimate Destruction.

Had she known, it’s a toss-up as to whether she would feel guilty… or perhaps a little impressed with her affect on the male persuasion. Albeit, an unusual variety of male.

In her ignorance, she continued to play. A love spell here, (that one seemed to work, drawing the attention of a stranger named Killian; dark and devilishly handsome; to her client; a middle aged woman named Milah who was attractive but worn-down and lonely), a spell for rain there… that also worked, but had no off-switch. It left all she knew soggy. Overly zealous, the endless rain made cows sprout moss while their enclosures sprouted mushrooms. The explosion of the frog population was such that all were deafened and nearly driven mad by their singing. If only they would vary their tunes.

The girl, Belle, had no idea how to make the rain stop. Such were her spells… off they trotted, with agendas of their own. Eventually, the rain was bored and lost its oomph.

Then came the couple who lived by agriculture, David and Mary Margaret. Their fields were many and were known by all crows, everywhere. Crow-word had spread. Crow told crow, and many flocks, many murders congregated in the fields of the couple and held forth.

 _This land is your land_ , they said. _This land is **our** land. Be good and share, like your grand-mammies taught you. Thou featherless twits, o thou_.

Nothing worked. The crows understood poison and worked around it. They tore delicately through netting and took frantic, effectively evasive flight from gunshot. They were friendly with the scarecrow. They were eating the couple out of house and home and destroying any dreams of a tidy profit.

The couple were Belle’s next clients and she accepted their commission cheerfully. For she was a good witch, and pretty, too. Not a warty or beaky sort. In fact, she was cute as a button.

She worked her spell; crow feathers, burned in a burlap sack, ashes spread in the fields. A bit of her own blood spilled where the scarecrow hung, in sacrifice and thanks. (To whom? Belle didn’t truly know who might be accepting her blood in payment, but she knew this was how it was done).

Shortly thereafter, the abomination began.

Sheltered in their home, hands over the eyes and ears of their children, the couple peered from curtained windows in holy terror at a surprisingly enlivened scarecrow. It walked the fields, long, wide strides, and hunted crow. The brim of its low-slung hat hid the madness of its eyes and the fearsomeness of its bloodied teeth, but there was no missing the spray of blood as it tore heads or wings from crow bodies. In a gruesome scene that no witness could un-see, it – with a strength and precision that _could not be_ – tore the beak and leathery tongue from a crow that was in mid, panicked and frightful shriek, then stabbed the bird’s black and wild eye with its own beak.

The pragmatic couple wanted to be rid of the crows and had never paled at the thought of a dead crow. But… this. Slickly bloody and even less unknowable than Durza, the scarecrow stalked the perimeter of the fields. Its long arms swung and its wicked, gnarled hands held pitifully dead crows by their stiffening talons.

Belle’s spell worked, all agreed, but the couple feared the demon who guarded their fields. The fields belonged to him, now. Neither the couple nor their children would leave the house and their dreams were haunted by the grating whisper, the rattle and clack and gibbering growl that was the scarecrow’s voice.

Rumplestiltskin danced a little booty-shake and waved his arms in counterpose to his groove thing. Pointing both forefingers at Jareth and Durza, he sang, “Who you gone call?”

The question was lost on his companions, who looked at one another and back to the recently rehabilitated Dark One. (So it was said. Let’s face it; rehabilitation has its limits). The less he wanted to blow up the world, the more random and mad he seemed. It gave one pause.

At Rumplestiltskin’s bequest, off they went. _Field_ trip! (Rumplestiltskin found that hilarious). Away from the comfortable house, not a castle, but do-able. Away from the winter-lands and their layers of mountains. Off to places where people, ( _Ugh_ , said Jareth, understandably), congregated and mucked-up the land.

Off to the girl, Belle, who naively threw her spells out into the world(s) and knew not what she did.

“ _Ohhhhh_ no!” sang Rumplestiltskin. “There goes Tokyo! Go, go, Godzilla!”

Begrudgingly, his companions chimed in with a dispirited, “Yeahhh…”

The scarecrow was an awakening. Ruby stared, frozen with horror, and muttered, “Undo it. _Hurry_!”

But Belle did not know how. Setting things in motion; that was her knack. Thereafter, magic set the tone and the pace. The rain did exactly as it pleased, (fish appeared in puddles; and how?), the lovestruck Killian, dark and devilishly handsome, attended to Milah… yet also spent an inordinate amount of time staring towards the far-off sea with a puzzled look on his ruggedly beautiful face.

Where had he come from? Was there a former life he yet missed?

And…. The scarecrow. Belle shared Ruby’s dismay and fear, but what could she do?

“Set him on fire.” Ruby said, a whisper, lest the monster hear.

But that solution put the fields in danger, maybe the whole town. Also… would they have to endure the tormented, dying howls and shrieks of the man-thing she’d created? Black smoke rising into a sky dull with sorrows; the scent of scorched, ashen earth and burned feathers, the hot iron of smelted blood. Belle wrung her hands, now so devoid of magic, not a drop would spill. Her brow furrowed, growing careworn.

Not a person in the town could put a name to or categorized the gang of malcontent individuals who arrived, cocksure and so very past peculiar, looking for a fight. Were they a post-punk band, synthesizers and light show to arrive by later transport? Or, more likely, glam rock. Electric guitar and pelvic thrust. Fancified clothing.

One was fair, icy and rooster-like, down to his matador stride. One was a gloomily gothic compromise between Dracula and Nosferatu. One was… What was he?

“Where is _Belle_?” that one shouted, whilst his body formed an artful vogue.

No one spoke. This familiarity came as a surprise. Sure, Belle was fooling around with – perhaps – dark forces. But she was cute as a button. Ask anyone.

“Well?” prompted the… what was he? With his wild eyes, too large for his face. With his cheerful grin and terrible teeth. With his dandy’s wardrobe and skin that… glittered, that was greenish, which couldn’t be easy. With his restless body and articulate hands. His puppeteer’s voice and raconteur’s manner. What _was_ he?

No one would have answered if they could, but they could not. However, the buzz reached the ears of the girl, herself. (Anyone who fools around with forces of darkness, who experimentally sacrifices her own blood and periodically yearns for a wolf could be said to be curious. Curious girls and whistling hens, or something like that. Bad ends, is the point. A duck is a duck, friends.)

Belle came forth. Rumplestiltskin splayed his talkative hands and said, “Ahhhhh….” as he breathed her in. Gardenia, dewy and soft, at the back of his throat. Creamy magnolia upon his serpent tongue. The juice of blushing, velvety roses that dribbled from the smiling corners of his ghastly mouth.

So sweet, girl-meat.

He shifted into a new, inquiring vogue and Jareth and Durza backed him up with wide-legged stances, arms folded over their chests. What manner of hearts beat, beneath? Each wore a thoughtful frown and each considered how he might best beset the town with his own special unpleasantness.

“I hear you have a problem.” Rumplestiltskin addressed Belle. “A _demon_ problem, nasty varmint. A little runaway magic, eh?”

Belle did not have to confirm. Rumplestiltskin had been a dragon of late and had tasted her runaway magic to an exact T. It wasn’t easily forgotten. Perhaps not easily forgiven.

“I can help you with your problem.” His happy grin expanded in eldritch glee. “For a price.”

The beings at his back exuded repressed delight. As was Rumplestiltskin’s way, he’d turned their frowns upside-down. Heigh-ho… Was that the shadow of the Devil passing by?

An out of control, murderous scarecrow is nothing to an accomplished, rehabilitated (it was said) wizard. And if ever a whever. Be it known throughout the lands.

At the snap of knuckly fingers, loud and cracking; the flash of fingernails made black by corrupting evil and the mad gleam of a snow leopard’s eyes; the menace of the scarecrow was no more than straw and dust, straggle-bits on the bloodied ground. Poof.

Never would the crows return to the scene of their would-be genocide; this was Belle’s legacy. That, and tales of her cuteness, passed down from generation to generation, so that when her true name was long lost, she was still known as Beauty. She who had created a monster and seduced another to her aid. Beauty was admired and yet she was a cautionary tale.

Nervous and shy, genuinely frightened, Belle asked, “What do I owe you?” Feigning innocence, she opened a coin purse. She knew, in her very bones, the price was not money.

“For the subduing of your demon, dearie, I think… a kiss.” To start. To begin yet another spell.

“A kiss… _where_?” Jareth murmured, smiling nastily. How charming it was to make young girls squirm and think of bodily things they’d never before thought. It made one want to brandish a riding crop and snigger.

Durza only stared while his very being seemed to subtly vibrate. His excitement for such pivotal moments could barely be contained. Sure enough, in the distance – over the cold, winterlands – storm clouds began to gather. Hags and crones began to taste the ozone which precipitated the arrival of their darling one.

“A kiss?” Belle asked, eyeing the greenish skin and unspeakable teeth of the savior-wizard. He who had saved her skin. “Only a kiss?”

Oh, it was never _just_. “Aye.” Rumplestilskin nearly growled, alarming all humans within hearing distance.

The jig-like moments of vogue came to a sudden stop. Were he a calmer color, he might be only a man, ready to take his manly due. A man, perhaps, with dark designs. His arms hung at his sides, his eyes deepened and showed the stirring of thoughts within. Hidden from all present was his psychic flower consumption, the ghostly manner in which he deflowered and already knew the curious girl… from the inside-out.

Bravely, ( _look at me, brave before everyone_ , Belle thought; and Rumplestiltskin took full advantage of her every vain desire), Belle stepped close and pressed her soft lips to the lips of the creature no one could define. Soft as petals, sweet as honey, intoxicating as wine, Belle butterfly-brushed her kiss to the snarling lips and into the murky soul of the Dark One.

With the kiss, the Dark One planted a seed.

~O~

Once upon a time there was a ghost-wolf.

It walked and stalked and prowled, furry menace and glowing eyes, sharp at tooth and claw, steely at jaw. Up and down the spine, toes tapping nerves. Curled around bone, lapping at blood and lymph. A squeeze upon a muscle, poking at tender organs, muttering spells to cells in a throaty growl… the Wolf.

Around the rich and arterial red of the heart grew a garden, a thicket, a forest. The heart fed it and it fed the heart; blood, oxygen and magic. Micronutrients and phytochemicals, phosphorus-stardust and iron.

It made of the chest a secret place, and here the ghost-wolf walked. It was shadowed by thick greenery, bound by bony ribs and a wall of muscle, all around. _Sleeping Beauty was here_ , was the graffiti of rushing, red blood cells, cognizant of her thorny, briar boundaries. Snow White was here, too, in her crystal coffin, deep in a wood whose perimeter was patrolled by disparate dwarfs.

Rumplestiltskin’s magic had muscle and _lo_ , was fertile. _Bring me the wolf_ , Belle ensorcelled, but caused an accidental dragon. He then knew _flight_ and _fire_ , for which he owed her. Bet he also knew entrapment and suppression, rehabilitation, for which he might not forgive her.

For his help, she gifted him with a kiss. For her kiss, he gave her a wolf.

The colors that descended from darkness and starlight, dusting dark-minded women with the glitter of magic. O, the comet’s tail. O, the dragon’s tail. O, the horn of the unicorn and the dark, seal-eyes of the beast, swallowing light, swallowing sorrows, worlds. O, the sweep and froth of angel wings, colors flashing in darkness.

The deep blue, moving into black, of true darkness. The glow of lavender twilight, hushed and dark-to-light, then dark again. Gold, ablaze or whispered. Pink and pale, shimmering green; the Northern Lights, the winterlands. Boundaries and doors. Whales that swim in the sky, swallowing stars and stardust as plankton. A whale-shaped darkness, a black hole. Its movement is dark energy.

All of these things and the feelings they cause to awaken, honed down to a seed, a droplet, a glowing, red ruby. It burst, the colors and darkness burst. Belle turned herself inside-out, only to discover she was furry on the inside. Then, as an autumn-colored wolf, she _ran_.

She ran to the mountains, to the winterlands. To the house, (not a castle; but what’s to be done?), tucked in and amongst the beehive network of caves at the foothills, sheltered with ancient trees and overrun with goblins. A place of cold and sparkle and magic.

Rumplestiltskin opened the door at the scratch of her paw, her claws. The Winter Boys peered over his shoulder at the new arrival. Extending a lace-cuffed hand to pet the tufted, canine head of the beast, Rumplestiltskin said, “Good girl.”

THE END


End file.
